Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Last week I played a game at the Thunderdome, which is the LAtCS nickname for Ed's garage. The game was part of a new series the podcast is running in which a champion plays games against a series of challengers. Two men enter, one man leaves.

Have a listen to episode 45, I'm on it! Get it from iTunes! I won't spoil who wins, but I won!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Pretty close if I do say so myself! Notice the Termagant coming out of the birthing sac, the spines and the fact that it's walking on its claws. I also almost used the Carnifex head with the tongue. Granted, I used the codex artwork as my inspiration, but I think I did pretty well for myself.

The differences are the height of the legs and the sheer size of the birthing sacs. On mine, I enlarged the belly but this one is just Octomom massive. Mine will also have an easier time getting a cover save.

Here's the link to the original post where you can see different angles of my Tervigon.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Tuesday night I played against the ineffable Col. Dracus and his Chaos Marines. He's already written his version of the report here, but I have pictures! I took my nids and we decided to play a test game of this rumored PDF. We played 1250 points because we knew we'd have to look up a ton of things. Here's some pictures of the game, and what I learned. I took the pictures on my 3DS so excuse the blurriness.

We played a standard mission type. I figured I would dominate the objectives game with my masses of troops choices. I should have put the spawned Termagants over by the third objective. It wouldn't have made a difference in this game, but in a closer game it could have made the difference.

He massed up prepared to advance.

My Trygon arrived via deep strike and was shot by the Berserkers. It took two wounds and charged them in the same turn.

...aaaaand then it took a powerfist to the knee. Trygons don't even have knees!

The Berserkers got killed by my T-Fex and Prime, but then they killed the Fex and the Prime got shot to death. I almost got tabled, but I still had a lot of objective points. You can see the lone Termagant hiding behind the hill.

In the end, I lost. For most of the game I was in the lead on objective points, but the fact that at the end you get double what you currently hold is what did me in. If that hadn't done it, the kill points would have. We didn't even total them up, but I'm quite sure he won on those.

Here's what I learned:

*Tyrannofexes can now hit stationary tanks on a 2+. I immobilized his Rhino on the first turn. It would have been a wreck, but the -1 modifier for being a tank saved it.

*Going first is important. The opponent hasn't moved yet so you get a bonus to shooting. Night Fight will be a commonly selected stratagem for those going second.

*Cover only being a 5+ is rough. Sometimes I could get the 4+ by having less than half the squad visible, but it means a lot more casualties.

*Having your own MCs get shot up easier isn't good. Strategies are going to have to change, I think the missile launcher will still be king.

*Dropping the Doom into the middle of a ton of troops isn't a good idea when they can use defensive fire. If you're going to drop him he has to be supported. *Post Edit: The Mycetic Spore is immune to defensive fire. The Doom would have been alive.

*Having more control of your reserves is excellent. I loved being able to pick where my Genestealers came in (I had them outflank).

I also learned that the rules need some serious editing and polishing. I like them and I like the ideas that are taking place here. If this is a fake, can we get the guy who wrote them to publish his own rule system?

Monday, January 16, 2012

I've read through the "leaked" PDF and FAQ, and I am of a mind that it's legit, a draft that will be edited and cleaned up but largely unchanged. I won't go through my reasons why I think so, but I will state why I think Nids will finally pull their faces out of the digestion pool and get to chompin' everyone. Here's what I've found:

Positives:

+Only what covers the base counts as the body. Those of us with huge Harpy conversions (like mine) or other beasties have major problems with LoS. Now it's a lot clearer, and we'll have less arguments. Furthermore, dense terrain will help hide us.

+With the changes to WS, Deathleaper and the Swarmlord will be hitting on 2s, and many troops will need 6s to hit back.

+No more missiles causing ID on Warriors. They'll take two wounds instead, though S10 will still insta-gib them.

+Reserves are more controlled. You can get the Doom down earlier more reliably. Lictor's Pheremone Trail is actually useful as it functions even when they're off the table.

+Genestealers have Move Through Cover, which means they'll reliably get where they're going at a quick rate.

+Along those lines, with running being doubled movement, it is quite possible to get our assault troops into CC by the second turn.

+With much of our troops having Fleet, that means charging 16".

+In CC, No Retreat wounds are divided, not suffered by each unit. So when you've got a swarm of Termagants and a Tyrant in combat, the Tyrant won't have to save a bajillion No Retreat wounds. Plus it can be negated.

+Objectives. You get points every turn for holding an objective. It's really easy to throw a horde of spawned Termagants on an objective and camp them there all game. Furthermore, you can't hold an objective while in a transport. That means the hardest part of playing against Mech, getting them out of their shiny metal boxes, is already done for us.

+Infiltrate and Deep Strike. From what I read, you can assault after deep striking. Lictors can deep strike anywhere without scatter. However, you must beware of defensive fire.

+Nids need terrain, and there are stratagems that let you practically rewrite the battlefield.

+The Tyrant can now leave Tyrant Guard. I'm not sure when you'd need to, but options are always good.

+Hormagaunts can choose to use Fleet and run up to 16", or use Bounding leap and charge up to 18". They are faster than Beasts and cavalry while running, though their charge is slower.

+Harpies now are far more useful, and you'll actually get to use those spore bombs now.

+Pyrovores get a 3" boost in their range, and can use their flamer in close combat. It ignores armor saves in CC as well!

+Trygons can assault after deep striking now, just watch out for defensive fire.

+The Doom now inflicts two wounds per point that they failed the leadership test by, but no longer fires in the opponent's shooting phase. This is better because most of the time, the opponent just moved out of the 6" bubble.

+If you're in a transport, you can only shoot out 18". No more getting splatted by Mech Guard autocannon spam!

Negatives:

-S10 will cause two wounds to anything with T6.

-They can run us over with their tanks. Tank shock isn't a joke anymore.

-You can't stretch a big conga line of Termagants out to claim multiple objectives. One unit per objective.

-No more blocking off table edges. Reserves are simply placed within 6" of the edge.

-The Mawloc can't deep strike into CC anymore.

Interesting tidbits:

*You will likely need to model special Termagants and such to serve as squad leaders. I think a simple spike on the head should suffice.

*Blasts work like they did back in 2nd edition. I am not sure if that makes you more or less accurate. My guess is more.

*There is mention of a transport called a Cerebore. Are nids finally getting a proper transport?

*There is also mention of a terrain piece called a Weathered Bastion. It's not a regular bastion, it's old and tattered with reduced armor value. Possibly a new terrain kit? I'd put money on it.

As you can see, the positives outweigh the negatives. I may be doing a test game on Tuesday, I will report on how Nids fare with these rules.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Would you like to get over $100 worth of games for a fraction of their price? I've been a longtime Humble Indie Bundle fan, but this latest bunch is by far the best I've ever seen. When the bundle first came out, I thought it was an amazing deal and the best bundle they'd done up to date, but they've added even more to it and I just had to share.

Here's the official introduction to the bundle, with plenty of nerdy memes:

First off, let me review the games. They are:

Gratuitous Space Battles: This game does away with all pretenses of story and just jumps straight into the explosions. You don't actually control the ships, you design them, program them and then watch things blow up. The challenge is winning a map with the minimum size fleet possible. You have to build your ships to fit a role, while programming them to match that role. Like 40k, deployment is key.

Cave Story+: I've just started this game, but it is a platformer/RPG. It plays like Castlevania or Metroid.

Jamestown: A space shoot-em-up but takes the alternate history premise that the New World is actually Mars. You play as Sir Walter Raleigh fighting the Spanish and indigenous Martians.

Bit.Trip Runner: A platformer/rhythm game. Your actions in the game influence the music. This is a hard and frustrating game, but still addicting.

Super Meat Boy: One of the more famous Indie games out there. It's a platformer that once again is maddeningly frustrating at times, but gives you a real feeling of elation when you conquer a level.

Shank: I haven't played this one yet but it's a sidescroller beat-em-up.

NightSky HD: I haven't played this one yet either but it's a sidescroller platformer where you control a glowing sphere with unusual abilities.

The above games were the Bundle as it first appeared. Just yesterday they added the contents of the third Indie Bundle if you pay more than the average. Those games are:

Crayon Physics Deluxe: It's a simpler version of LittleBig Planet. You use crayon drawings in a full physics engine to solve puzzles. You can create your own levels. Every level has multiple solutions, some far more complicated than others.

Cogs: A sliding puzzle game, but set in a 3D steampunk environment. The puzzles play over a variety of 3D surfaces.

VVVVVV: The most maddeningly fun platformer of the bunch. You can't jump in this game, instead you reverse gravity. There's only three buttons to the game; forward, back and flip. Despite this the game is extremely difficult, incredibly frustrating and extremely fun. The soundtrack is a fun, peppy chiptune score that gets stuck in your head.

Hammerfight: Possibly the most bizarre game among the bunch. You control a flying ship with a weight at the bottom. Flipping the mouse around swings the weight like a ball and chain. You fight through various levels against giant bugs and such. Of the ones I've played it's my least favorite, but it's not a bad game.

And Yet It Moves: A platformer where instead of jumping or flipping gravity, you rotate the entire level. This is a tricky mechanic and requires a bit of practice to get right. The art style is like torn paper, everything has rough deckled edges.

Yet that's not all. In addition to all these twelve games, you get the soundtrack to each one. The soundtrack to VVVVVV alone is worth the price, but there's quite a few good ones among this. Bit.Trip Runner and Super Meat Boy stand out, but there's many others.

So how does it all work? The Humble Indie Bundle is a pay-what-you-want deal. If you beat the average price, which currently is $5.18, you get the bonus games as well. Even if you just play one or two of the games it's worth it. All the games are cross platform, Windows, Mac and Linux. Portions of the funds go to charity, and you can split up the payment as you wish. All games are DRM free, and you can activate most of them on Steam if you want.

The bundle will only be up for six more days as of this posting, and then it's gone forever.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

I painted this one on commission, my patron being Col. Dracus. His Space Marine chapter is a custom one, called the Celestial Lions (so that's not technically Lugft Huron). The colors were chosen by him, as seen in this post. He's going for a really unusual basing scheme which is why I didn't do the base for this one. Be sure to check out his work on his blog, linked above. His basing scheme is to make them look like they're in a palace.

The color is similar to the Astral Claws. He wanted the broad flat blue areas to be reminiscent of blue marble. This was one of the trickiest things to figure out how to do. The eyes were also really small and I had to do them twice to get them looking in the same direction.

To weather the flamer I used Tamiya weathering powders.

Here's a closeup of the banner. Dracus named the Celestial Lions' chapter master Gaius Magnus. I almost had to stop myself from writing Gaius Baltar on the banner.